Today CNET (which is owned by CBS) released a new video of Star Trek: Discovery co-creator and executive producer Alex Kurtzman talking about the new show. He had a lot to say, so we transcribed everything he said below, and provided the full video as well.

Kurtzman on Discovery’s Story and Michael Burnham

The story that we have for season one is really interesting and special and pays tribute to a lot of what Trek has done and in many ways is actually doing it in a new way. To have Sonequa [Martin- Green] and Michelle [Yeoh] as captains of our ship is really, really exciting and different.

I love stories that are based around strong women and we have some strong women on that show. Having Sonequa – she is a very, very special actress – is bringing a flavor to the character which I haven’t really seen in Trek and that is really exciting. Her story is very unique and draws on some really interesting things in Trek lore. I think fans will both, appreciate, and I’m certain, it will be a cause of much debate.

NOTE: While Kurtzman refers to Martin-Green and Yeoh as “captains of our ship,” all reports have Martin-Green’s character as a first officer, and we suspect he may be referring to the series itself as “our ship.”

How Discovery connects to the original Star Trek

If you are a fan of Trek you are going to see a lot of things which hearken back to the original series and elements of the original series. I am not just talking plot, but the spirit of what that show was. We are going to be revisiting a couple of things on Star Trek: Discovery that I think people are going to find familiar. Without spoiling anything we are adhering to a timeline and sticking to the rules, but also I think finding some new areas and avenues that have only been alluded to, but never fully explored.

How Discovery is respecting Star Trek canon

You have got a roomful of people with very different and very devoted relationships to Star Trek in that writers’ room. And that carries on a pretty proud tradition of Trek being written by fans.

You have to respect canon as it’s being written. You cannot say, “That never happened.” No, no no, you can’t do that, they would kill you. Star Trek fans would kill you. No, you have to respect canon. You have to understand the timelines and what the different timelines were and what the different universes were and how they all worked together. You have to keep very meticulous track of who, what, where, when and why. And we have people in the writer’s room whose sole job is to say, “Nope, can’t do that!”

Star Trek: Discovery writers with a visiting Michelle Yeoh

On why we still need Roddenberry’s vision

I think that the core of [Star Trek creator Gene] Roddenberry’s vision – and I think that is why it has endured for as long as it has – is the belief that human beings will always find a way to persevere and connect to each other. And that there is an optimistic outlook to where we can be going. And now more than ever we need that desperately. So, he gives you hope. Star Trek gives you hope.

Exactly. Just a cash grab disguised as a movie series. New fans couldn’t care less about Roddenberry’s vision. Hope doesn’t sell advertising. Dark, depressing, flawed characters with a never ending string of disappointments. That’s basically the go-to format these days. Might as well just make this a reality show about four people living in shuttle bay and record all the drama.

Paramount and CBS need to give the PAYING Star Trek fans what they want to see. If “new fans couldn’t care less about Roddenberry’s vision”, and those new fans are the ones paying to see Star Trek movies and tv shows, then give them what they want.

Right on point.Fans like Mr. Lincoln feel because he is paying it should be done his way. Tv shows and Movies are a business and a huge risk.Everything can be done right and bomb big time. Even if Discovery is done right it could still bomb. At the end of the day CBS will do the show the way they see Trek and hopefully make big profits. BTW if Mr.Lincoln was given the power to make a Star Trek show I doubt he would have a clue how to do it.

Actually the problem (or one of them) with the JJ films was that they didnt know what they wanted.

They got too cute. They went on about how they had to reboot to create their own sandbox to play in but in reality they wanted their own box…but they wanted the sand and the toys from the TOS box moved to theirs.

Had they simply done their own thing, it would have been less glaring. But they got so caught up in showing off their Trek Cred card that they used canon whenever they needed to, wanted to or just felt like being cute. And they often got it wrong anyway.

The concept of taking a TOS character, Spock, and following him back in time and then taking off the story from there was, in my opinion, brilliant. The execution, however, was awful.

Your argument heavily relies on believing those films had a problem. I don’t think they did. I think for what they aimed for, they hit right on the money. And largely the public has embraced them, they’ve been generally well received, and performed well at the box office.

I don’t think they’re perfect films by any stretch, they have their flaws, but few movies don’t. I actually think they’re less flawed than many of the TOS/TNG films.

I know it’s not saying much but STID was not even in the same shitty league as the Transformers movies. STID at least tried to have a story and themes. It wasn’t – as many people claimed “*just* action and splosions”.

I agree that Star Trek tried to have a story. The unfortunate part is they entrusted the story to guys who simply werent capable of delivering.

Everyone has different talents and even within a shared talent like writing, there are different levels of talent. The JJ film writers just werent good enough. I know they want to think they are among the best of the best but they aren’t. And the films suffered for it.

As for the international box office STID broke previous records thanks in large to the added 3D, Imax tickets as well an aggressive international marketing campaign by Paramount in countries like China. However, that didn’t continue with STB.

I’ll just add that one big reason for STID having a strong foreign box office was Paramount made a major foreign marketing effort. One they did not make with the other two. And it seems to have paid off.

And STID was such a mess, it practically killed the film franchise. They limped to a conclusion with Beyond which not nearly as many people saw. They saw STID and didnt like it and were turned off on these films.

Ive always said its fine if you like the films. I dont hate them. Every film had things to really enjoy. The real shame is the lack of expertise and skill in making them.

The writing wasnt good enough. JJ is a fine technical film maker but left to run the show, he showed how little he understood Trek.

>>> The writing wasnt good enough. JJ is a fine technical film maker but left to run the show, he showed how little he understood Trek. <<<

And that is one of the major reasons I have a legitimate reason to be pessimistic about Star Trek Discovery. The guy who wrote Star Trek Into Darkness, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and The Mummy remake with Tom Cruise is now pulling the strings for Star Trek on television.

STID needed a lot more than tweaks. It had the bones of a good story. First, re-cast Khan. Secondly, dont use Khan. Flesh out Admiral Marcus so we get a sense of why he is doing what he’s doing (and make him right from his perspective). Flesh out the Marcus/Pike relationship so we get a sense of the two men being close friends. Stop making Uhura a stereotypical emotional woman who cant handle her relationship in a professional setting. That shit wouldnt fly in my office here let alone in a pseudo military setting. Give a reasonable motive for Khan to even exist in this film aside from the absurd idea that Marcus needed a mean guy from the 90’s to design really mean weapons in the 2300’s. Make Khan act like Khan. Also, make him NOT Khan. Do not kill Pike. Have Marcus trying to take Kirk under his win (could be presented as almost a friendly competition or slight jealousy between Marcus and Pike – ie. Pike is Kirk’s mentor so Marcus takes an interest, plus if Kirk is the brilliant officer he is portrayed, have the Admiral taking an interest makes sense). Plant the seed in Kirk that Marcus is right and Pike is wrong. Which gives us the conflict between Pike and Kirk on the mission. You could even have Marcus subtly trying to inspire Kirk to make bold choices even if it means taking command from Pike to see Marcus’ plan to fruition. Kirk has… Read more »

You’re onto something with Pike. Have him gravely wounded in the attack on Star Fleet HQ and end up in the wheelchair…part of a larger, over-riding tension that the TOS timeline is the “right” timeline and deviations, like the Kelvin timeline (and I’m assuming there are others–maybe the “mirror universe” is one of these, created by a Gary 7 mistake or some dumb Enterprise time bandit trickery like the one that had bad guys in 2004 Detroit (or wherever)–are phenomena of nature desperately wanting to correct the natural order, some great overriding force that wants things to be the way things are supposed to be. That allows for the whole Trek gang to end up in the same ship, for a very different Khan, and all the other fun stuff out there that we can imagine. It is not perfect, but it beats no explanation and provides a backbone for some interesting material for Kelvin-timeline background. Carol Marcus is, then, almost certain to bear Kirk’s child, and David is almost predestined to die. We always hear about the butterfly effect–why not have a butterfly that hits back? (Sounds like I have a bigger essay to write)

Yes, they dangled the idea that the universe wanted to correct itself, their way of explaining away their oddly strong desire to invoke canon every three seconds which ran counter to their original stated purpose of unshackling themselves from it, but they never really explored the concept of a self-correcting universe.

They put Pike in a wheel chair at the end of 09 just to be cute and of course, hit the reset button.

Its like they were petrified that they’d be fired so they didnt envision Star Trek as a trilogy (or series) which hurt the story telling. They wanted to wrap every film up in a neat little bow but then when the next one began, they had to unfurl the bow to create dramatic tension.

There is no greater example of this than their boldfaced lie about purposely advancing Kirk to Captain knowing people would think it was absurd just so they could undo it in STID. Thats when we truly realised the writers were lost…they were too arrogant to admit they goofed.

For example : make Benedict John Harrison. One of many genetically engineered supermen creased to be slaves. Rest of his story can be the same. Make the dialogue in the Kirk death scene NOT verbatim to TWOK. It’s fine otherwise. Scotty even said lines Bones delivered in TWOK. It wasn’t even the same lines from the same characters. Have Harrison be out of action after crashing Vengeance. No pointless hover chase with Spock punching someone in the face. That’s it.

“STB that did not perform as well, but it still did 342M, a healthy sum.”

Not a healthy sum by any definition. According to every major box office & entertainment news, from Deadline, Variety to The Hollywood Reporter STB underpreformed.

The movie cost $305 million (Production budget= $185M + marketing =$120M). Perhaps you don’t know but the studio don’t get back all 342M.

For a reality check see this article from this very website:

Star Trek Beyond Lukewarm at the Box Office

In our estimation, the film underperformed at the box office globally to the point where it looks to be unprofitable for Paramount Pictures, at least for now. This article examines the near-final numbers for Beyond, seeks to answer the question why this happened, and analyzes what this could mean for the future of the Kelvin Timeline on the big screen.

“The concept of taking a TOS character, Spock, and following him back in time and then taking off the story from there was, in my opinion, brilliant. The execution, however, was awful.”

I feel like this is a very deft analysis of one of the central failings of JJ’s films. It was a brilliant way to be able to give them creative freedom within the confines of Trek lore. But what they chose to do with that freedom was, at times, disappointing. I still have hopes for JJverse Trek, but more eargerly am awaiting Discovery’s premier.

This is and was the problem trying to recast the original actors that are so burned in our brains. This why it would be better the next film ,if there is one should totally be new,and in the future. I mean it’s Star trek it doesn’t mean it has to be TOS or any old series.Kirk and Spock are iconic ,so are the actors ,so why do it again.

I didnt mind them re-casting and I thought they did a pretty good job. But the arrogance was in not questioning themselves. They just assumed they always got it right. They were too busy patting each other on the back they missed their glaring errors. Quinto was not a great Spock. he was ok. But looking like Nimoy should not have been the end all be all of casting. He sounded nothing like Spock in tone or tenor. He couldnt act the outwardly stoic, internally conflicted Spock whatsoever. Part of that was an awful story arc where he was constantly emoting and surely the directing. But its the fault of the film makers if they dont make sure they KNOW. Chekov should not have been in 09. It served no real purpose other than the silly joke that Pike doesnt even know who he is and he’s sitting at ops station on the bridge. The film loses nothing by not having Chekov. We get it, Nero changed things and his arrival meant Chekov was born sooner. ugh. Pine was a good Kirk. His occasional Shatner-isms were always spot on. The glaring error was, ofcourse, the Kobiashi Maru test which was a completly ludicrous and insulting scene. Pine acted it as directed. But it was awful. Urban was good when he wasnt chewing up scenes and spitting out terrible one liners. Again, the fault of the writers and director. Uhura was good when she wasnt being forced to be the whiny,… Read more »

Exactly. The first film had its share of problems. The fact you needed to read a comic book to understand the backstory was a problem. They had that weird moment when SPock Prime met Kirk and it sort of stopped the film to explain the entire history of things (which was needed since the movie was really the second half of a missing story).

Many of the characters acted out of character and were stereotypes. Which isnt a surprise because these writers werent very good…they wrote easy stereotypical characters.

Kirk’s time at the academy (the awful awful Maru scene) and his rise to Captain was all terrible.

But the movie accomplished the task of “freeing” them from canon. They then promptly write an even more convoluted story that touched on canon for its emotional resonance at every turn but was like a warped, broken view of canon.

And it was really an admission on the parts of the film makers – they knew fans wanted recognizable TOS. So they used that but unfortunately, they were simply not good enough to make it work. They thought, arrogantly, their take on canon was better. They were wrong.

The cast was all good. I’d actually say the worst casting was Quinto as Spock. It was a case of simpleton-itis. They saw an actor that resembled Nimoy and it clouded their judgement of everything else – the fact he didnt sound right, didnt act right, didnt convey the gravitas or internal struggle.

A lot of that could be writing and directing. But Quinto’s Spock was arguably the weakest of the main cast.

What JJ wanted was to own his own version of Star Trek with all the marketing opportunities that come with it. But they werent able to convince Paramount and CBS to play nicely and thus, he began losing interest.

JJ got lots of freedom. And it hurt the films.

When he got the Star Wars “dream job”, there were tons of rumors of him clashing with Kathleen Kennedy and being one and done and having nothing more to do with the franchise. The reports were that he was used to calling the shots and Kennedy wouldn’t let him. Fortunately, he seemed to get over it and embrace the LucasFilm culture.

You are probably right about him and Kathleen. Same thing kinda happened with the Han Solo film. These Hollywood directors just aren’t used to the draconian grip Lucas Films has on its property. They are extremely rigid with its lore and detail there in. And Kathleen she has the vision of it all given to her by George Lucas. So even though GL is gone from the picture his “Vision” still lives with Kathleen and is paid for by Disney.

And Kennedy has shown a much better understanding of the source material and its place in the world than even Lucas. You get the sense she knew the Prequels sucked.

I realise with writers, directors etc, there is a confidence inherent to those roles and you want to paint your own picture, but why would you take on a gig in an established franchise like Star Wars or Star Trek and try to reinvent it?

Thankfully for Wars, it seems Kennedy is tough enough, smart enough and has the power to not let anyone push her around. Paramount didnt have a Kathleen Kennedy and gave JJ too much power.

TUP, I agree with you about Quinto being the weak link, and you put your finger on what was bothering me: No gravitas. When he was in “24” I thought he was decent so some of the blame has to go to the director(s), and especially whoever gave him the Peter Tork haircut in STB.

I think Quinto while be a weak link isn’t as weak as we may paint him to be. We may give him a harder time do to the freshness of Nimoy in our minds and the sadness of his recent death as well. I don’t think we could of found a person who could of matched Nimoy. He was a special man and will be sorely missed. Person I didn’t like replaced was Scotty. I personally never liked Simon Pegg as Scotty nor cared for his little alien friend either. I like him as a comedian hell I like him in Mission Impossible. But I do not like him as Scotty. I would of just said he was another Engineer. I don’t see him as “The Miracle Worker”. That and I’m tired of seeing the Enterprise go up in smoke at every conflict with another ship! TIRED OF IT! Kirk wasn’t known for killing his ship every time out of drydock. Just getting it beat up!!

@James – No, I disliked Quinto as soon as I saw him on screen as Spock. He came across like such a weak character. Nimoy was very special in conveying an inner turmoil but an outwardly very strong character. Quinto never got that, or wasnt allowed to explore it.

I suppose the idea of playing an “emotionless” character maybe didnt appeal to many actors so perhaps the feeling was they had to give Quinto “emotions” but it just didnt work.

The triumvirate worked because Kirk was center between the two extremes of Spock and Bones with the depth that came from both those characters also possessing qualities of the other, in more subtle ways.

So when you have an overly emotional Spock, it simply doesnt play off Kirk and it definitely doesnt play off Bones. It turns Bones into a joke who rattles off stupid one liners.

I agree about Scotty to a point. He was at his best in Beyond. But I guess I accept him because you know the writers would have comic relief and the actor hit the right notes even if it wasnt true to the character.

Too bad the writers and JJ didnt bother doing any research, like watch TOS. I get a sense they might have watched the “film trilogy” but thats it.

In other words, you’re only superficially knowledgeable of what went down, Ricardo. JJ did NOT take the Trek job in order to direct a Star Wars movie, since no new Star Wars movies were yet being planned at that time.

JJ did not want to make a film to get him a job doing Star Wars. I don’t know where to begin but I’ll try: in 2009, Disney was 3 years away from buying Lucasfilm. In 2009, Lucas was still holding firm that there would never be any more SW films.

In 2013, before STID, Steve Spielberg recommended Abrams to Kathleen Kennedy, who made Abrams an offer shortly thereafter. As was well documented at the time, Abrams turned down the offer, and it was another 5-6 months before he was persuaded to direct EP7.

This is great news. Gene’s vision will hopefully be secure in this iteration. I have enormous respect for the talent Alex et al has brought together under one roof. These people bleed Star Trek, and it will be interesting to see what they come up with creatively.
It will be even better if I am encouraged to go back and review TOS episodes in order to complete the big picture. (Not that I need an excuse to watch them)
Many people are worried about Discovery being too progressive, however, TOS always alluded to humanities progression in the universe, yet we were never given the details. But I suspect that humanity will have it’s up’s and down’s but will prosper at a healthy, moral, and spiritual pace that will allow us the liberty to see many of Gene’s visions become reality.
My thanks in advance to Alex, and all the writing staff. May you boldly go where Star Trek has never gone, and may Gene shine down and praise your journey.

I wonder what he means by different “timelines” and “universes.” Aside from the Mirror Universe, the Kelvin Universe, and the Prime Universe, there really isn’t other significant timelines or universes of significance in the canon.

Fans tend to think that when producers use the word “universes” they’re talking literally, but often these folks are talking brands, the larger fictional settings, or as TTWD says, the universe of a story, series, comic, novel, or film.

@Capn’ — 3 universes is plenty to make that statement alone. Add to that numerous timelines — and technically speaking each one of those timelines is another universe if the KU multi-verse theory is applied. The fact is, it could get very confusing keeping it all straight.

I like what Kurtzman is saying. However I don’t know if I should believe it because this is one of the architects of the JJ movies. I understand and am ok with how those movies introduced a new timeline? But I am not ok with how they shaved 25 IQ points off Star Trek, disregarded Rodenberry’s vision, and turned it into Star Wars lite. So in my view, he has no credibility as to keeping the spirit of Trek alive.
But do you guys think he is saying Discovery will adhere to the prime timeline? That is something that is either going to true or not true.

I am somewhat okay with the JJ reboot and I like that they’ve raised the action a couple of notches, but they did dumb Star Trek down for no acceptable reason… Plus, Kurtzman had his hand in a substantial number of turkeys in the last ten years (along with more than his share of incomprehensible decisions). So, I’ll give him the benefit the doubt for now…

I’m with you, GarySeven – I’m OK with the reboot concept, but not OK with how much they dumbed it down (Cadet-to-Captain in 2009, the cold-fusion device, “magic blood,” etc. in ST:ID. OK Beyond was decent). I take Kurtzman’s words to suspect here, personally.

I’m sure that when the Trek 2009 scenarists came up with their time travel “alternate universe” scenario, they couldn’t stop high-fiving each other for their cleverness. Not only did it provide the backbone of the film’s narrative, it promised to free them from the constraints of Trek canon, which after 700-plus hours of content had become a textual straightjacket. Problem is, we’re three films into this now, and it’s become obvious that the idea which promised a universe of creative freedom has instead lead the franchise into a windy cul-de-sac where characters with a fifty-year pedigree needn’t act much like themselves, and outcomes therefore don’t much matter. They would have been much better off by staying in the “prime” universe and creatively working within the established history of what had come before. (Certainly the back story given to Kirk in TOS — a studios, put-upon wallflower, witness to a political revolution and its bloody aftermath on one of his first missions off-planet — was far more interesting than anything Orci, Kurtzman or Lindelof came up with.) I’m sure hoping that’s the tack the Discovery producers are taking.

The scenario they used was pretty clever but they didnt really want to be free from canon. They wanted to use canon all the friggen time. They just didnt want to have to work hard at it. They wanted to use all the marketable elements of TOS without having to use them properly.

They should have remained in the prime timeline, still did their convoluted time travel story but treated it like the same universe and just wrote stories we had never seen.

The idea that there was no drama in knowing the outcome never made sense. We knew they werent killing off the main characters because when they did, no one bought it and its one of the most criticised elements of the JJ films.

Those Klingons are canon? pre TOS ships are canon? everyone in star fleet with an Enterprise badge on their uniform is sticking to canon? That huge high tech bridge in a ship older than Discovery is canon?

You guys should really crowdfund your time pushing the benefits of Discovery to your fellow countrymen to onboard as many CBS AA subscribers as possible, and not waste time trying to convince people who’ve already seen a lemon. After all, the US is the only place where the pilot isn’t pay per view. Just how many hundreds of millions of you are going to sign up?

The rest of us have to either take out a subscription JUST to watch the pilot based on the abysmal trailers, or be an active fan of TOS hungry for more reboots/prequels, or is already a Netflix subscriber who’ll be paying their monthly sub either way and not giving any added value to Netflix’s revenue stream.

I’m sure you’re not stupid. You can see the blatant fault in the logic, right?

I like how none of the trailers have anything whatsoever to prove what he is saying. The delta badge is about it, and they’ve even screwed with that too.

When he says it will adhere to canon, I think what he actually means is they’ll give their own take on it, which is absolutely not sticking to canon at all! As far as the outside world sees it they’re twisting things in to their own narrative and reboot to bolster CBS All Access.

The “outside world” is you and your bubble of haters. The larger “outside world” is salivating over Discovery and everything that’s come out of it so far. That’s the audience that’s gonna make or break the show, not the angry fans chugging the haterade.

You guys should really crowdfund your time pushing the benefits of Discovery to your fellow countrymen to onboard as many CBS AA subscribers as possible, and not waste time trying to convince people who’ve already seen a lemon. After all, the US is the only place where the pilot isn’t pay per view. Just how many hundreds of millions of you are going to sign up?

The rest of us have to either take out a subscription JUST to watch the pilot based on the abysmal trailers, or be an active fan of TOS hungry for more reboots/prequels, or is already a Netflix subscriber who’ll be paying their monthly sub either way and not giving any added value to Netflix’s revenue stream.

I’m sure you’re not stupid. You can see the blatant fault in the logic, right?

And Karl you’re forgetting there’s going to be a huge volume of advertising and clips coming out of this show in the next few months. If you want to get a sense of the show, you’ll have many outlets and plenty of content to do it. You’ll hear the word of mouth. You’ll see the Trek community responding. It’s not like you’re gonna be in a vacuum. CBS’s strategy is to bump subscribers by 3 million over 3 years. That’s a million a year, and as word of mouth grows, and the fan community embraces it, it will become a success. So yeah, I see the logic in their strategy, and there are no blatant faults to be found.

Oh please. Advertising and clips where? Here in the UK we’re your biggest market. Zero advertising, reviews, interviews, tv or otherwise. Are you speaking of that fancy “Netflix Original” placeholder buried in the home page shown to people who area already subscribers of Netflix and have watched a star trek episode at some point?!

Bro I didn’t say there currently is a lot of advertising. It’s gonna ramp up over two months. And yes, believe it or not, there’s actually a great deal of press surround DSC, and every little bit of news gets attention from multiple outlets. So I dunno what more you expect. Good god man indeed.

TUP and Albatrosity, I want and hope to love the new Star Trek show. I love Star Trek in all its forms, even TAS and ENT. So far, to me anyway, nothing I have seen looks like TOS. I don’t mind that, I really don’t care. Where I take issue, is with this guy telling us that this takes place in the Prime Universe. If it does, then for me anyway, I cannot yet reconcile the extreme visual discrepancies. Maybe the writers will have a genius explanation, I hope so.

TUP, your argument is spurious and obtuse. We have 79 episodes showing security guards and explorers with no body armour. Maybe, just maybe, they had all that protection stowed away, but Kirk banned them from wearing it. As Spock would say, this would be most illogical.

Again, I look forward to this show and hope that it returns to the spirit of TOS and is not a military based SF show. Even if it is, I’m too invested in Trek and will watch it regardless, it would have to be terrible for me to forsake it.

Ya know James, once upon a time fans DELIGHTED in seeing new parts of Trek that they had never seen before. I dunno why this dumb “adhesion to visual canon” sentiment became so widespread; I think it’s JJ having fractured the community that turned half of fans into haters. Just because you never saw body armor in TOS doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Like jeez, get over it. We’re gonna see new things. Embrace it, or you’re gonna be miserable watching it and insufferable to listen to.

Body armor, like security officers had in TMP.
The transporter effect was barely consistent. TOS effect was different from TNG/DS9 effect, which was different from VOY effect, and different from ENT effect. Even for the TOS movies, the effect was different from movie to movie.

I don’t disagree that the ship looks more modern and that the uniforms are different.

@James — canon MUST respect the history and technology. It doesn’t have to respect visual elements, things that will change over time due to our own advances. And yeah, we saw body armor in Trek. As for the different uniforms, we have no idea what kinds of uniforms existed during this period, not to mention the various ways technology was implemented. And so far, technically, I haven’t seen anything that expressly violates visual canon.

Oh please, spare us your in-universe TOS apologist rhetoric. That candle flamed out when we were forced to sit through Enterprise, gave it the benefit of the doubt, and were ultimately granted nothing but a 10 year hiatus and three feature films proving you wrong.

No, I think that bridge was burned when Roddenberry decided to change the Klingon look, i.e. physical features, their uniforms, et cetera for the first Trek television reboot attempt, PHASE II and carried it over to the movie that ultimately resulted.

Agreed. You don’t go into making a movie about the Civil War and replace all the powder rifles with machine guns because the audience doesn’t have the patience to watch them load and pack shot into a rifle. Or at least you shouldn’t. A good director knows how to stage things to make it work and compose and light their shots to make them visually interesting. It all depends on how serious they are about preserving the integrity of history. Trek’s fictional history is no different.

It’s clearly a visual reboot. And as a TNG first and everything else second fan I’m just find with that. TNG was a huge visual reboot not to mention oh say Star Trek the Motion picture. If at is heart its Star Trek and has great writing and acting I’m just fine with Star Trek for the 21st Century because surprise we are living in the 21st Century.

Not quite. It WAS sandwiched between two shows various aired pilots, GENESIS II(3 incarnations) and THE QUESTOR TAPES, that were shot down by the networks, and that Roddenberry was determined to use STAR TREK, once again, as a work around.

Guess it’s just a case of being force fed TOS rehashes for 15 years, and even giving it some support in spite of never really taking to it in the first place.
You’ll find that’s a common courtesy which has now run out, for some more than others.

It’s essentially the franchise being stuck in a rut due to now being in the hands of a people who have Kirk and co as their primary influence. It’s tired, put it to bed and do it with some degree of dignity.

@Danpaine — well to be fair, TNG did introduce telepaths in the form of Betazoids, a significant species which was not heard of before TNG, yet for some reason they did not populate every federation vessel despite presumably performing an indispensable function. The reality is, even if a species posses remarkable skills, they may not have any desire to be involved with Starfleet — Vulcans seemingly frowned on Starfleet service. So there’s no reasonable expectation that just because a species existed in the universe, that they would have ever interacted with Starfleet in the stories we’ve had before now.

That’s so simplistic. In Universe, the Federation is huge and not all species have a strong desire to serve in Starfleet. He could be one of the few who do or the last one of his kind to do so. Also they may sence death just like how Guinan can sence chances to the timeline. (Open minds people)

It will be very boring indeed if we only see aliens we’ve already seen in Discovery. Some should be familiar but some should be new or things will get dull pretty quickly. I assume when we watch the other shows we’re not seeing every frickin alien in the galaxy.

I will say, just to be devil’s advocate, that if JJ had completely redesigned the Millinium Falcon then fans would have never let him, Lucasfilm, or Disney hear the end of it. Same thing if Roge One made the Death Star a giant pyramid instead of a sphere. So visual aesthetics, I think, does play somewhat of a role in establishing the defining look of your franchise. IDK

@The Optimist You make an interesting point but to my mind the design of the Falcon and the Death Star held up better in the time between 1977 and today. However, if you pinned me down to explain I’m not sure I could tell you why I feel that way. I would even say the same was true with Battlestar Galactica, Colonial Vipers, Cylon ships, and the Nostromo. Maybe designers just had a better grasp of spaceship design by the 70’s.

For me, as long as Discovery does not generally feel more advanced than TMP Enterprise (another vessel designed in the 70’s) I can live with the disparity when compare to TOS…

But the look of Star Wars 1977 and 2015 was on purpose.Even with CGI 2017 it still looks right for 2015. TOS 1966 VS today just wouldn’t work.I mean do fans really want Discovery to look just like the 60’s? That’s just nuts!

Just wanting clarification on what the show runners consider “canon” since they toss that word around a lot. I’m pretty realistic myself and don’t expect or believe that the show has to look like TOS. You wouldn’t want to see the 66′ bat mobile in Batman Begins. It just wouldn’t work. Besides, the Constitution Class Enterprise had so many looks, including multiple bridge layouts of varying look that it doesn’t really matter if everything stays consistent in terms of visuals. As long as the ships and universe that the characters in habit looks real and believable and the story is good then Discovery should be fine.

@The Optimist — yup, that’s right. A different actor plays Kirk and they are going to look different than William Shatner. Same with everything else on camera. We live in a world with iPhones and tablets, there’s no reason for technology 300 years in the future to look like transistor radios from the 60s.

To me I always had an issue with Trek uniforms.Enterprise was to me the most realistic to how it would be if we were really in space.Sure Next gen ,DS9 etc looked cool,but if you were meet a hostile race you would stand out like a sore thumb. Once this hostile race figured out the ranks they go right after the Captain.But for making the show look good I get it.

I’m sorry but as much as I treasured TOS as a child back in the 60’s/70’s I cannot in good conscience support a show is straightjacketed by design and production elements of the 60’s. No offense to the original deigners, they did a great job with what they had to work with…

If I could accept the TOS Enterprise and TMP Enterprise are the same vessel then I can overlook updates on the current design elements in Discovery… Maybe they can design some sets/ props as an homage to TOS… I could live with that…

Thanks and great point.Your dealing with some fans that are in a time warp or bubble and can’t believe they change anything. They want the look of TOS, which to me is just dumb.No studio in there right mind is going to do that. We see that with the super hero movies, nobody looks like the comics you can’t do that.

Well said. If they had access to the same special effects back then as they do now, surely something like what we’ve seen so far from Discovery would have been the norm on TOS. To be honest, when Enterprise first aired, that was my biggest gripe. But I came to terms with it in a hurry once I realized this fact.

Agreed 1000%, and this from a huge TOS fan for over four decades and counting. I’ve got over a hundred hours of the original series, “Starship Exeter”, “Star Trek: Phase II”, and “Star Trek Continues” if I need to satisfy my 1960s design sensibilities. Let’s bring the 23rd century into the 21st century, as it were.

At the risk of sounding like a nerd, as a fan of TOS Star Trek, I never liked the JJ Abrams versions. This states it will stick to cannon, but I would like to know how they come to this conclusion. Already I see some evidence that they haven’t from what I see in trailers and screenshots. I am willing to give this show a shot, but am already very skeptical. I think their best bet would have been to go further in the future past TNG than to go back.

The hell with canon,Andrew you need to except the fact you will never get the show you want ever again,it just doesn’t work that way.However with good stories this show can do the job and make any fan happy.

I despise it when a writer focuses on the sex of his characters to this extent. Especially in the utopian future of Star Trek, you should be writing people, not gender. Between that and, despite what he says, their approach to canon, I think I’ll pass.

Looking at some of these comments, with Discovery being in a time we never viewed before ,why all the boo birds? All Trek series of the past added to canon and broke new ground.The way I view it is if there is a rule,I break it because its the only way things move forward.Trek fans want something new yet adhere to the Roddenberry rule.You can’t have it both ways. Think about it all past series moved the ball forward. DS9 comes to mind. A lot of people now think that was the best series out of all of them,even the TOS. TOS at the time did something no TV show did and DS9 broke those rules and gave us something new. For Star Trek to be successful ,it has to break the rules to some degree.My hope is if this new series can be a real success the next Star Trek big screen movie will also be something new and different.They need a reason to put TOS to bed which I hope they do.No more Kirk Spock reboots. As much as I love those guys,3 and out is enough.

I am once again, upon reading the comments below, left wondering why so many of the regulars even bother visiting this site–so many of you clearly are not Star Trek fans. You’re just people who like to complain.

For some fanboys “adhere to canon” not only means continuity with with history of shows before but also the look of the show. Primary color plywood sets, cheap costumes and bouffant hairstyles from the 60’s.

But see, that’s kinda how it works. That IS the aesthetic for Star Trek in that time frame. So That’s just what it is. You don’t get to go give Native American’s fiberglass tee pees because you don’t like the stretched buffalo skin. You just don’t. They don’t get to ride motorcycles either because horses are too difficult to film. Either accept Trek’s history, as is, or disregard it and stop playing canon games that pretend you’re in the same fictional universe.

jonboc you just seem not to understand that Trek has been doing this throughout its lifetime. From the beginning of the series the sets and uniforms have been changed. It’s just part of filmmaking, and it doesn’t change the quality of the stories being told. Either accept that and embrace the stories, as you have for LITERALLY EVERY OTHER TREK SERIES, or complain about it and just be annoying…

No it’s not. Its the aesthetic for a couple of ships that appeared in the 60’s. Discovery will show a wider and deeper aesthetic.

I bet we eventually see the Enterprise (or a Constitution-Class) and it will be shockingly similar to what we saw in TOS. I hope they do it, and give it a modern update, just to drive the fans nuts who cant wrap their minds around the differences between 60’s effects and todays effects.

Granted, the Discovery is a science vessel. That actually gives them some liberty to create something, because it was never established or seen in the series. Outside of the Grissom in Trek 3. The problems surface when you start seeing things that were also seen in 1966 and they don’t match. At that point your whole fictional universe gets jettisoned down the toilet. I hated TNG, thought it was stupid in it’s evolution to let families stay together onboard. But I accepted it’s aesthetics. The hotel lobby was an abomination, but I accept it. 100 years from Kirk’s time, things got soft. So be it. But that was a projection. Discovery takes place in a time already well documented by the Cage, so there should be certain standards with certain aesthetics. But again, that is ALL we saw of the early Trek universe, so there is room for interpretation of other ships and tech. Time will tell.

Since we haven’t seen the actual show yet, there could be explanations for these visual differences. But, even if not, I would say those are examples of them not following visual continuity. The story canon could very well still be intact. And this wouldn’t be the first time there was a visual reboot. The Motion Picture doesn’t look anything like TOS and it was set only a couple or three years afterwards.

I really just don’t get it. All this smoke and mirrors about “canon” is just that. The way Isee it, IF we are to accept Trek’s fictional history then we must adhere to the visuals already established. That IS how things looked in that fictional universe, at that time. You don’t go back and make a film about established history and change things. You don’t arm Al Capone with an Ak-47 because it looks better. Troops from 1942 don’t fly to war torn Europe in jet planes because you want them to get there faster. It doesn’t work that way, or at least it shouldn’t. Not if the producers want to maintain the integrity of that established, albeit fictional, history. It all boils down to how serious are about it. Despite all the yakety-yak lip-service regarding “canon”…it’s clear the new producers aren’t serious about it at all. It’s just another new Spiderman. Another new Fantastic Four. Another Hulk. Just another Star Trek, in it’s own time and universe. I hope it’s good, but the entire “timeline” has been slowly unraveling, why even bother to put on airs anymore?

To your analogy about sticking to “history”, let’s look back at the history of film: historical dramas have been in production since the earliest days of cinema. 1915’s Birth of a Nation was made a mere 50 years after the Civil War. Yet when you look at a Civil War drama made today, say Lincoln, it has a completely different visual look, despite hewing to the same history. So does that mean it doesn’t stick to quote-unquote canon? You can tell just looking at the sets of a historical drama to find out when it was made, whether it was 1915 or 1976 or 2012 or whenever. So yeah, there’s an established visual history. It doesn’t mean it won’t LOOK different when interpreted by multiple directors and filmmakers over the decades.

…true, but there has always been effort to look like the particular era being depicted…production values notwithstanding. There is a BIG difference from a scene being shot on location with a modern steady cam versus the same scene being shot in front of a painted backdrop with hand cranked camera….and then, replacing colt 45’s with 9mm pistols and giving them all cell phones. Lincoln may have have been depicted with many variations of a stove-pipe hat, but he was never given a derby.

The problem with the people respoding to complaints about canon with lines like, “have you seen the show yet?” simply are not facing the fact that what we’ve been shown of the production design of “Discovery” bears no resemblence to TOS, whatsoever. None. Why is this the case, when other ST series have gone out of their way to be faithful to TOS’s production design asthetic?

TNG and DS9 BOTH revisited elements of the TOS timeline (as well as the timeline of the original features) and were visually faithful to that time period. Is it really necessary to specifically point out that Scotty’s Constitution Class Enterprise was prominently featured in TNG “Relics?” EXACTLY replicated in the holodeck, big blinky lights, buttons and all. The Mirror Universe was revisited in DS9, Voyager and ST:Enterprise, as well as having the physical differences explained between the Klingons in TOS (semi-Klingons) and TMP-beyond, in ST:Enterprise episodes “Affliction,” and “Divergence.”

If the production team truly wanted to put the fans’ minds at ease about the visual nonconformity of “Discovery,” then they’d have shown us something other than what we’ve been shown thusfar. It is no mystery to them that there are ST fans screaming about this stuff because fans take it seriously. Kurtzman and co just don’t care.

Enterprise. Kelvin. Franklin. So those visuals should be rendered moot because you want to make a TV show in 2017 that looks like the 60’s?”

No,it’s because that is how they they looked. Nothing more, nothing less. Like Rodicus explained…even in TNG and Ds9 And Enterprise…the 23rd century tech was depicted just like it was in the 60.’s, just more spit and polish. And it looked great. The new series look different and that’s ok…they’re set 100 years after TOS. Things change. But we KNOW what this era, the era of Discovery, looks like…at least from the Enterprise’s perspective. You don’t get to go make aesthetic changes to history just because you don’t like it. Or at least you shouldn’t be able to.

His comments are talking points – business plan talking points. We are all in that plan, as are millions and millions of fans that we speak for. There’s no way that in 1700 anyone could imagine 2017. And in 1750 even the same person might imagine 2017 differently. So far what we have seen doesn’t preclude the possibility of a second or third or sixth season of DSC some time in the future that shows our universe the way we want it TOS like, but that also doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, if each season is set during a different time period, that’s exactly what we may get.

”You have to understand the timelines and what the different timelines were and what the different universes were and how they all worked together.”

Strange choice of words. Adds to my suspicion that the Klingon ship emerging from the black hole/event horizon in the trailer isn’t just from the past, but it’s also from a different/parallel universe — perhaps the Kelvin Universe.

If that’s true, the scene is basically ST09’s opening scene flipped around: Both scenes show Starfleet vessels confronting huge alien ships of previously unknown design emerging from some kind of “black hole”…but instead of a villain from the future shooting first at an innocent Starfleet ship, you have a morally-ambiguous Starfleet officer shooting first at an innocent Klingon ship from the past.

Alex Kurtzman’s comment about having someone dedicated in the writers room to keep canon straight makes a lot of sense. I’ve never understood the argument that they need to wipe the slate clean with a hard reboot because there is just too much content to sort through and it handcuffs the writers. With the Star Trek Encyclopedia & Chronology and Memory Alpha available as tools to a writers’ assistant (who presumably is a rabid fan like a lot of us!), it shouldn’t really be a big deal. I would also imagine that CBS is economically incentivized to keep things in the same story universe to encourage new fans to binge on all the other previous TV series that will be available on the service. The more I think about Kurtzman’s comments the more encouraged I am becoming!

The JJ films desperately need a canon cop in the writers room. Unfortunately, that was supposedly Orci. But thats like me going to a trauma centre and claiming to be the resident expert on brain surgery and all the doctors simply believing me and deferring to my opinion. There would be a lot of dead patients.

I have been a Star Trek fan since the original series. I will watch just about anything related to the shows. I don’t criticize, don’t over analyze, I don’t have a pair of pointed ears and I will absolutely not pay extra every month to see a new show. This is just another way for the Network to take advantage of the fans. Some of you should get a life, go hike in the wood or something beside Sta Trek.